What is PCI Compliance? Requirements and Eligibility

What is PCI Compliance?

Any business who might take card payments, Is a business job to protect your customer’s financial information. Which means business need to comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS Compliance). This is a mandatory security requirement that applies to all businesses taking card payments in person, over the phone or online – it helps both business and their customers safe from data breaches. But who oversees all this? The PCI Security Standards Council. They require all major card types (like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express), payment service providers, banks, and any other organizations/businesses that process card payments to verify they’re PCI compliant. As you might imagine, it’s a big operation.

PCI Compliance Levels

PCI compliance has four levels. Each one has its individual requirements. The level at which your business falls into depends on how many card payments you take annually. See which level you are…

Level 1

Businesses processing over 6 million card transactions annually across all channels.

Level 2

Businesses processing 1 million to 6 million card transactions yearly across all channels.

Level 3

Businesses processing 20,000 to 1 million e-commerce transactions.

Level 4

Businesses processing less than 20,000 e-commerce transactions annually and all other merchants processing up to 1 million card transactions annually.

PCI Compliance requirements

To become compliant, the business needs to meet specified security requirements. This means business might have to update your systems, including software and hardware, in order to become compliant. Here is the full list of requirements:

Firewall

Install and maintain a firewall to protect your customer’s data. Make assured you don’t follow any vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords.

Encryption

Make sure your public networks are encrypted in order to protect data that’s stored on your systems.

Vulnerability Management Program

Regularly update anti-virus software on systems that can be attacked by malware, having both systems and applications secure.

Restrict access to data

Specify unique IDs to those with computer access and restrict physical access to cardholder data. This will prove that you’ve implemented strong access control measures.

Regularly monitor and test networks

Track all access to network resources, so you can identify any weaknesses that compromise your security.

Privacy Policy

Have a policy that discusses information security.

While you might already have most of the above in place, formalizing these measures is great practice and assures that they’re in a position to be sustained. So you can evade liability in the event of data theft.How much PCI Compliance CostsCosts depend on a few things like the size of your business, the type of card payments you take and the number of transactions you process a year. Also, as discussed above, you’ll need to make assured your software is modernized. This is why costs can vary.As a guideline, you’ll need to pay a monthly PCI management fee, which is incorporated in your Quarterly invoice. This perks to manage compliance on your account and membership to the PCI programme, including helping you with quarterly scans of your network and providing you with security advice. Have in mind, compliance fees might grow if your business isn’t complying with the regulations.Level 1 businesses must have yearly on-site reviews by an internal auditor as well as a requisite network scan by an authorized scanning vendor. You’ll find a full list of certified scanning vendors online from the PCI Security Standards Council.

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